Social Media and SEO

Social Media Marketing does not involve search engines, but does play a key role in a website's exposure and online marketing efforts. Whereas dealing with search engines requires a delicate and constant adjustment of subtle factors (SEO) or costly premiums (SEM), working through social media is relatively cheap and holds the promise of incredibly lucrative growth, if done properly.

Having seen the power and reach of viral content, companies have flocked to the social Web in order to utilize this "online word of mouth" for their own branding efforts. This includes having a corporate presence on:

Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter

Streaming video services, like YouTube

Location check-ins, like Foursquare

Image sharing, like Instagram and Pinterest

Blogs

SEO refers to the techniques and strategies used to increase the likelihood of a website appearing on search engine results, namely as close to the top of that list as possible.

Search engines prowl the Web, taking notes of everything they encounter. When a user types something into the search engine, making a search query, the engine's algorithms spit out a list of what it thinks are relevant results.

In this situation, the search engine is the deciding factor. It holds the position of strength. All a website can do is insure its content is sound, good, and proper and trust that the search engine will recommend it whenever appropriate. But in today's online marketplace there is lots of competition, so it's not even enough to just make the list; a website has to stay near the top. Anything too far down the list of results and that website might as well have never been displayed in the first place. Being buried on page three or later is akin to being completely out of sight, and subsequently out of mind.